Red-Gold Hair

by George A. Birmingham

RED-GOLD HAIR

BY GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM

SIR HILARY BODEN, his pyjamas covered with a voluminous robe of Turkish towelling, entered his dressing-room as the clock struck eight. Like many men with nothing particular to do in life, he had a passion for punctuality, and prided himself on getting up at precisely the same time every morning. On his dressing-table, placed there in obedience to Sir Hilary's strict order, lay his share of the morning's post. Many men dislike looking at their letters before breakfast. It is easier, no doubt, to face a bill cheerfully after a solid meal, and the prospect of having to answer tiresome people is not so irritating when the stomach is full. But neither bills nor bores had any power to annoy Sir Hilary. He had always money enough to satisfy the most exorbitant creditor, and since his marriage he had adopted the plan of handing over the letters of his relatives to his wife. Lady Boden appeared to enjoy writing letters, and Sir Hilary, who was very fond of her, did not grudge her any innocent pleasure. He had been married two years, and often found himself wondering how life had ever been tolerable without his wife's companionship.

There were two periodicals and a parcel awaiting him. The parcel looked like a book. The periodicals—he recognised their wrappers—were two magazines devoted to archæology, published by two very learned societies to which Sir Hilary belonged.

He turned on the water for his bath, and then tore off the wrappers of the magazines. A glance at them satisfied him that each of them contained a review written by himself. Sir Hilary did a good deal of reviewing. He was an archæologist of some eminence and knew all there was to know about every kind of antiquity, from the Ogam stones which lay scattered about his Irish estate to the inscribed Assyrian bricks. He had a trenchant, vigorous style and nothing delighted him more than to expose in print the absurdities of his brother archæologists.

The water ran into his bath, and Sir Hilary chuckled quietly at the thought of reading over after breakfast the really nasty things he had written about a large and handsomely illustrated book which purported to explain the origin of the ruined temples of Yucatan. The bath was no more than half full, so Sir Hilary laid aside the magazine and cut the string of the parcel. He hoped to find inside it another book, on some still more obscure subject. He did find a tastefully bound octavo volume bearing the title “Red-Gold Hair.”

“Now, what the devil,” said Sir Hilary, “does any one mean by sending me a novel to review? I don't read novels.”

This was not strictly true. Sir Hilary often carried off the books which his wife received from her circulating library and read them in his study. He always spoke of them afterwards with great contempt, and generally asserted that he had not been able to get through more than two chapters.

He stopped the water running, for the bath was nearly full, and took off his dressing-gown. Then he paused, opened the book and glanced at the frontispiece. It was a handsome, coloured picture of a woman's head. The hair was more red than gold, but it no doubt justified the title on the cover. Sir Hilary snorted with contempt, tossed the book on the floor, and put his sponge into the bath.

While he was splashing about it occurred to him that it might after all be rather amusing to review a novel. He wrote, occasionally, archæological articles for a leading weekly paper. He supposed that the editor, in a moment of temporary insanity, must have sent him a novel to review. Before he began to shave he picked up the book again and turned over the pages. Here and there he read a passage, and chuckled. It would certainly be very amusing to review this novel. He called to mind the various scathing remarks he had made from time to time about the books which his wife read. They would all, he felt convinced, be applicable to “Red-Gold Hair.” They could be strung together into an article which would pulverise the unfortunate author.

“It's sure to be a woman,” said Sir Hilary.

When he had finished shaving he looked at the book again. The author was a woman: “Red-Gold Hair,” by Gladys Gordon, he read.

“She'd have been better occupied minding her babies,” said Sir Hilary.

Being an eminent archæologist, it was natural that he should hold old-fashioned opinions. His view of woman's place in the world was identical with that held by some very ancient nations, and it entirely justified him in being as nasty as he could to this Gladys Gordon, who had so far unsexed herself as to write a novel.

Sir Hilary sat down to breakfast in a very good temper. The two archæological journals lay forgotten in his dressing-room. The novel was beside his plate. Lady Boden, who was usually very late, appeared, unexpectedly, shortly after the gong rang. Sir Hilary was glad to see her. He was fond of his wife, and he wanted some one to talk to about the review he intended to write of the novel.

“Marion,” he said, “you read a good many modern novels. Can you explain to me why the heroines always have red hair?”

Lady Boden glanced at the book on the table. The title was plainly visible from where she sat. “Red-gold hair,” she said, “not red. It's a very pretty colour.”

“The author calls it red-gold,” said Sir Hilary, “but the picture at the beginning represents it as definitely red. I cannot for the life of me see the attractiveness of red hair.”

Lady Boden blushed. Her own hair was of a quite unremarkable brownish colour. Sir Hilary supposed that she took his disparagement of the novel heroine's hair as an indirect compliment to her own. She looked very pretty when she blushed; so he walked round the table and kissed her. She was accustomed to these casual demonstrations of affection, and appeared to like the kiss. Sir Hilary stroked her ear gently, and then went back to his breakfast and the book.

“The author,” he said, “dwells a good deal on the heroine's hair. Here's a passage from Chapter I. 'Muriel sat on a low seat by the fireside, and the flickering light of the flames shimmered amid her red-gold hair.' I need scarcely tell you, Marion, that the hero enters shortly afterwards.”

“Hilary, have you read the book?”

“Not yet. I only received it this morning,”

“Then how do you know that the hero enters shortly afterwards?”

“I don't actually know,” said Sir Hilary, “but I shall be greatly surprised if he doesn't. My experience of heroes in novels is not very large, but I flatter myself that it is sufficient to enable me to predict with tolerable certainty that they will come on the scene when the heroine's hair is, for one reason or another, looking its best. Now listen to this, which comes on page 152, a little more than half-way through the book.”

“Don't, Hilary.”

“It won't spoil the book tor you in the least. It's only an incident. I lit on it by the merest accident. 'The car shot forward along the smooth road. The wind rushing past her loosed from its fastenings a single tress of Muriel's red-gold hair. It brushed lightly against his cheek. A mad impulse seized him to——'”

“Please don't, Hilary.”

“If he had obeyed that impulse,” said Sir Hilary—“I don't want to shock you, Marion, but the thing the impulse urged him to do would have necessitated his letting go the steering-wheel, and then there would have been a smash. Fortunately he didn't.”

“Give me the book,” said Lady Boden.

“You shall have it this afternoon,” said Sir Hilary. “I must keep it by me until I've reviewed it. I want to quote some of the best bits. There's a passage about Muriel's twisting her red-gold hair into a simple knot with a single sweep of her hand at the moment when she was being rescued from a burning house, or a burning ship, I'm not sure which, by the hero. I wish you'd learn to do that, Marion. You'd often be in time for breakfast if you succeed in doing your hair as quickly as Miss Gladys Gordon's heroine did.”

“Are you going to review that book?”

“Certainly.”

“And say horrid things about it?”

“The very horridest I can. In my opinion this Gladys Gordon, whoever she is, deserves the worst that can possibly be written about her. She ends the book by saying that the hero rains passionate kisses upon Muriel's red-gold hair. Now any one who could write that——! No man living would kiss a woman's hair more than once. He'd get it into his mouth the first time he tried, and any one who has ever experienced the sensation of chewing hair knows how disagreeable it is. Gladys Gordon is evidently a fool, or she wouldn't say such a thing.”

“He would kiss her hair if he really loved her,” said Lady Boden.

“No, he wouldn't. He couldn't. He'd choke. And conceive to yourself his wanting to draw her towards him and clasp her close to him that time in the motor-car when the tress of her hair got loose.”

“He would,” said Lady Boden, “if he loved her.”

“No, he wouldn't. If her hair tickled his cheek when he was driving the car, he wouldn't care how red or gold it was. He would want her to sit further off, and nothing but politeness would prevent him telling her so plainly.”

Sir Hilary went to his study after breakfast and wrote a review of “Red-Gold Hair.” He did not actually read the book, but he quoted several passages from it. He read what he had written with very great satisfaction. Not even about the gentleman who explained the temples in Yucatan had he been able to say such thoroughly disagreeable things. He ridiculed Gladys Gordon's work from several different points of view. He was even fortunate enough to come across two grammatical mistakes in it, and a classical tag, quoted by the hero in a moment of extreme excitement, which revealed the author's complete ignorance of the Latin language. He copied the whole review out carefully, and then went to look for his wife. It was his habit to get her to read aloud to him his own compositions. He said that he was better able to judge of their literary value when he listened to them. In reality he enjoyed the praise she invariably gave him, and was, besides, never happy for long out of her company.

Lady Boden was not in the morning-room where she usually sat. Sir Hilary tried the drawing-room and failed to find her. He wandered, the MS. in his hand, through the conservatory and a great part of the garden. He returned to the house, and learned from a maid that Lady Boden was in her bedroom. He went upstairs, and found her stooping over a trunk which was half full of clothes. This surprised him. He was still further astonished to observe that she was crying bitterly. She held in her hand when he entered the room a large framed photograph. He recognised it at once as one of himself, taken shortly after his marriage. She was apparently packing it up in her trunk, and seemed to have formed the plan of keeping the glass from being broken by laying it flat between two night-dresses. It was, he noticed, quite damp with the tears which had been shed on it.

Lady Boden looked up when he entered. She put down the photograph, and gave her eyes a hurried dab with the second night-dress.

“Hilary,” she said, with a sort of forced calm, “I am going to leave you.”

Sir Hilary said nothing. His amazement deprived him of the power of speech.

“You no longer love me,” she said, speaking even more calmly than before, “and it is better for us to part.”

“I do love you,” said Sir Hilary. “I've been searching for you all over the place. I've only just discovered where you were. I assure you, Marion——”

Lady Boden's self-control gave way. She collapsed into a limp heap on the floor and wept bitterly. Sir Hilary laid his MS. on the dressing-table and sat down beside her. He patted her shoulder gently, and when this failed to soothe her he put his arm round her.

“Don't,” she wailed piteously. “How can you when you don't love me!”

“But I do,” he said.

By wriggling about on the floor he managed to get himself into such a position that he could put his other arm round her.

“If you did,” said Lady Boden, “you wouldn't write horrid things about my book.”

The utter injustice of this inference stung Sir Hilary to self-defence.

“It's not your book,” he said. “It was sent to me to review. But of course I'll give it to you if you want it.”

“It is my book,” she said. “I meant it to be a present for you. I thought you'd like it because I wrote it.”

“You wrote it!”

“Yes; and I spent £50 on getting it published because I thought you'd like it and be proud of me. And now—oh, Hilary, I can't bear it!”

Sir Hilary pulled himself together with an effort. The news he had just heard was a severe shock to him, but he felt the necessity for prompt action if he was to save the happiness of his home.

“I do like it,” he said.

“But,” said Lady Boden, “you said you didn't.”

“That was at breakfast, before I read it.”

“And have you read it since?”

“Yes,” said Sir Hilary.

“And you really liked it, and you haven't said horrid things about it in your review?”

Sir Hilary glanced at the MS. on the dressing-table. It seemed a good way off and was partially concealed behind a looking-glass. He thought he had a fair chance of getting possession of it before his wife saw it.

“I haven't reviewed it at all,” he said. “I—I liked it too much to write a review about it. I never review books I really like. They are sacred.”

“Oh, Hilary, is that really true?”

“Quite,” he said. “Let's unpack your clothes.”

“And, Hilary—oh, I've been so miserable; but you do like the colour of my hair, don't you?”

“I do. I always have.”

“And it's red-gold, isn't it?”

“Marion,” said Sir Hilary, “let's get your clothes out of that box before any of the servants see them.”

“But is my hair red-gold?”

“It is, and if the firelight played on it, it would shimmer. It always does. I've seen it scores of times.”

“If—Hilary!—if it touched your cheek, would it tickle you, and would you want me to sit further off?”

“No, it wouldn't, and I wouldn't.”

“I don't believe you mean it. I don't think that is the truth. You're only saying it to please me. If you really meant it you'd——”

She stopped abruptly. For a moment Sir Hilary was puzzled. Then a recollection of the final scene in the novel occurred to him. His wife's face was pressed against his waistcoat. The top of her head was quite close to his mouth. He bent forward and kissed her hair three times. He could not flatter himself that he actually rained them passionately, but he threw considerable vigour into the third kiss, and a hairpin pricked his under-lip painfully.

Lady Boden raised her head and looked at him with tearful longing.

“Did you hate ch-chewing it?” she said.

Sir Hilary touched his lower lip with his tongue and felt almost sure that it was bleeding profusely.

“I didn't chew it,” he said. “I find that you were perfectly right in your novel. There was no necessity to chew it.”

“You didn't choke, Hilary. Say you didn't choke.”

“Not in the least. I didn't so much as clear my throat afterwards.”

“Can I do it quickly?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“My hair. You said this morning at breakfast that if only I could do my hair as quickly as Muriel did on the burning ship——”

“I said that before I read the novel,” said Sir Hilary. “As a matter of fact you do it with extraordinary speed. I wouldn't have believed it possible that any woman could do her hair so quickly.”

“And I am in time for breakfast, always?”

“Marion,” said Sir Hilary, “don't ask me to say that you are in time for breakfast. I would say it if I could, but you know yourself——”

“I was in time this morning, Hilary.”

“Very nearly, but——”

Lady Boden put her hand over his mouth.

“Don't say 'but,' Hilary. After all the horrid things you've said to me to-day you mustn't say 'but' at the end of the one nice thing.”

“Very well, I won't. But do let us get your things out of that trunk. It is almost luncheon time.”

Sir Hilary succeeded in stuffing the MS. of his review into his coat pocket while his wife was restoring an evening dress to its place in the wardrobe.